


Lie Low at Strider's

by NoBrandHero



Series: Constants & Variables: A Species Swap AU [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Lusii, Meeting the Parents, Species Swap, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-13
Updated: 2016-04-13
Packaged: 2018-06-01 23:22:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6540886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoBrandHero/pseuds/NoBrandHero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Safe havens on Alternia are few and far between, so when Dave and Terezi need a place to lie low for a few nights, the best they can manage is traveling back in time to crash at Dave's old childhood hive. It's better than nothing, but they still have to avoid bumping into Past Dave and keep his lusus from flipping out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lie Low at Strider's

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place between Act 3.10 and Act 3.11 of [Constants & Variables](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1388143), when Dave and Terezi spend a month time traveling in pursuit of a glitchy asshole and have to take periodic rests. Some of the shenanigans that happened in this timeframe amused me, but not enough that I was willing to screw up the pacing of the main story to include them (especially during the big final battle). Have them as a side story instead!

Dave's sponge throbbed like a sculptor had mistaken his head for clay and chiseled into it. He was all about supporting the arts, but a fissure through the think pan went beyond his budget.

Did all horns have so many damn nerve endings, or was the ache that traveled deep into his skull another benefit of his shittastic mutation? Maybe it was a lowblood problem. He'd seen indigobloods walk off a broken horn without even flinching, he swore to god.

Shooting two hundred sweeps into the future just aggravated the wound, so that was cool, by the worst definition of cool. Nothing like a jackhammer to the sponge to keep a troll on his hooves.

Terezi increased her grip around his shoulders, as she hitched a ride on his back so they could both traverse the timestream while his hands were busy. "You okay, coolkid?" she asked. 

He lifted his fingertips off the timetables and his head lurched at the sudden return to linearity. The door to his old hivestem looked like a goddamn sanctuary. "Fuckin' peachy."

"That bad, huh?"

It wasn't bad at all. He'd gone up against a stronger opponent while low on energy and walked away with only half a horn shattered. He could have died and that would have been "bad." _This_ just sucked.

He took a deep breath to steady himself. "My lusus is that bad, if that's what you're asking. Brace yourself for a rudeass welcome involving a gift basket made of claws and screeching. Worst case scenario, I'll smack him upside the snout."

She climbed off his back. "What the hell kind of a parent do you have?"

"He's kind of like a giant crab." He slid an arm over her shoulders to guide her to the entrance. Thank god he'd never really bothered to change his lock, because breaking into his own hive was one hassle he didn't need that morning. "There are better lusus out there, but he's pretty cool."

He nudged the door open and strategically planted himself in front of Terezi as soon as they set foot inside, just in time to meet an ear-splitting yet nostalgic bellow.

Terezi winced but still managed a grin. "Hey, we've found Karkat's twin!"

Dave snorted. "It's me, you stupid asshole!" he called, shaking his keys just to prove the point that he had every damn right to be there. Okay, not every right, but he knew for a fact that his past self was busy sleeping over at a friend's hive that day, so who the hell was gonna complain?

His lusus was gonna complain. It had already leapt out of its nest, claws raised and eyes lit in fury that an intruder would dare break into its wiggler's hive. It settled back down when it spotted Dave, still snorting angrily into its bedding.

That was honestly a better reaction than he'd been expecting. He'd figured his lusus would get its panties in a twist that its wiggler was a sweep too old and had brought home an alien girlfriend.

Dave kicked the door shut and surveyed the hive, reacquainting himself with his decorating skills from one sweep ago: the blinds were already drawn in anticipation of the sunrise and the floor was a goddamn mess. Even with her cane as a guide, Terezi didn't deserve to navigate that obstacle course, but cleaning wasn't an option; it would alert his past self to shenanigans, plus his splitting spongeache wasn't keen on bending up and down to pick shit up anyway.

Where did he even start? Raid the meal block for water and grubloaf before he keeled over from dehydration and hunger? Stumble for painkiller in the ablution block? Could he just curl up on the floor and pass out, nightmares be damned?

He took a step and his body made up his decision for him as his knees gave out. Floor it was. How could his legs fail him when it was his head that was injured? Goddamn.

"Dave?" Terezi knelt, running her hands over him to check his condition.

"It's cool. Just scoping the floor out like-" Before he could deliver his simile, his voice cut off in a pained groan that he really should have swallowed.

His lusus clamored out of its nest and scurried over to investigate; it never could resist a distressed cry from its wiggler, which Dave supposed was kind of sweet except he didn't want those claws anywhere near Terezi. He needed to shove her away or smack his lusus back, but fuck, the block was still spinning by the time his lusus got up in his face.

Dave tensed, but it ignored the strange pink alien and concentrated on sniffing at Dave's broken horn, giving it a nudge. _Ow._ At least his lusus had the goddamn sense to stop touching it when Dave groaned louder.

At least someone had sense, because he was too out of it to even recognize what was happening when Terezi took what sense she had and chucked it out the window. She reached out until her hand bumped against his lusus's head. Instead of snarling or snapping her hand off, his lusus just huffed.

Either Terezi was magic, or his lusus drank sopor slime when his past self's back was turned.

"So you're my boyfriend's dad, huh?" Terezi said, her brow furrowed as she traced its outline. "Dave, can he understand us?"

Dave shivered. "He's selectively goddamn deaf, but he can mostly understand us."

"Hey, Mr. Strider," she said, patting his shell, "your son was wounded in honorable battle with a hardened criminal and now he needs some ibuprofen or shit so we can continue our quest for justice. Little help?"

His lusus raised its head as if it had only just noticed her. Dave held his breath, but it continued its tame streak and darted for the ablution block.

"What a nice hard-shelled Karkat!" Terezi said, sitting crosslegged on the floor and stroking Dave's hair.

"I cannot believe he's not screaming himself raw," Dave muttered. "I cannot believe you're still alive and I'm not fucking grounded."

"I cannot believe what a drama queen you are. Just kidding, I already knew that." She cackled, ending the laughter on a sigh shortly after. "Seriously, you hanging in there?"

"You say that as if I got a choice," he said, cringing worse as his lusus returned with heavy footsteps.

His lusus lowered its head next to Terezi, opened its mouth, and dropped a bottle of painkiller on the floor with a rattle. She fumbled for it and pulled a face when her fingers came into contact with the spit-covered bottle. Served her right, the number of times she fucking licked him.

"I take it Mr. Strider doesn't come with opposable thumbs," she said, popping the lid. "Also, how many?"

"For this? Four," Dave said.

She counted them out with her fingertips -- he hoped to god they hadn't already made contact with lusus spit -- and handed them over. "Can you take them dry?"

He tried to nod, which was just about the dumbest thing he'd done all night. "Yeah," he muttered with a wince, shoving them into his mouth. They burned with each inch they slid down his throat and he almost choked, but they went down all the same.

Terezi settled Dave on her lap afterwards as they waited for the pills to kick in. His lusus kept nudging against his shoulder, sniffing and chirping at him and remaining on its best behavior in light of its wiggler's injury, while Terezi took the opportunity to take a good look at his lusus through her fingers. 

"He does have claws!" she said with delight as she found one of them and cupped it. "He really is like a crab. A Karkat crab who raised a coolkid." She patted it. "I dub thee Crabdad."

That made no sense, but Dave was too tired to complain or argue about weird human words. Crabdad it was.

The pain never fully went away that day, but it did ebb over time into something manageable. At least he could stumble to his feet without further accident.

"Well." He took Terezi's hand. "Welcome to the Strider hive, where the party never ends and the crabs scream all day."

She perked up. "I am all about parties. Especially parties with food and passing out on the couch."

"What a hella coincidence, 'cos that is exactly the kind of party that's going down here," he said, leading her to the meal block; non-stop swordfighting for hours on end had a way of drying the mouth and emptying the protein sac.

Even without that promise to crash on the couch together, there was no way he would have abandoned Terezi for his recuperacoon. He gave way more shits about holding Terezi close and safe from Crabdad than about nightmares, even if Crabdad never raised a claw to her. He didn't like leaving it to chance.

Why the hell was Crabdad acting so chill with a human? Fuckin' lusus were such unpredictable, stupid creatures. He missed the bastard for a lot of reasons, but that sure as hell wasn't one.

It was probably one of those mysteries that would never get solved.

* * *

He solved it within the week.

He'd figured their brief sanctuary at his old hive was a one-time emergency measure to get them back on their feet and ready to face their enemy at full force. He sorely underestimated how fucking long their game of meowbeast and squeakcreature would last.

At the end of Round Two, he calculated another safe day to sneak into his hive again when his past self would be out. It turned into a routine.

By the third day, the last twinges in his horn faded and he stopped stealing painkiller from his past self.

He dared to sleep in his cocoon and leave Terezi alone on the couch by the fourth day -- after a particularly nasty nightmare sent him into such a bad fit that he spooked Terezi and Crabdad, anyway.

By day five, he struggled to remember another date he was sure his past self was out of the hive. Exhausted and dehydrated and sore, he settled for the next best thing: arriving when his past self was too young to remember unexpected intruders.

"Okay, ideally speaking, little Dave is already snoozing like a wiggler, so we'll just go in there, keep our voices down, pass out on the couch, and escape before he even wakes up," he said to Terezi as he fumbled with the lock.

She nodded along, but Crabdad was the one who needed the memo. The fucker let out a furious roar as soon as the door opened. There wasn't time to shush or calm it through quiet methods, as Crabdad was already on them and snarling.

"Dude, still me!" Dave shouted, holding a hand to Crabdad's snout. He winced in full anticipation that his arm might end in a stump soon, but Crabdad laid off the bites long enough to smell him.

Crabdad faltered, the hostility draining as it recognized its wiggler's scent. It shuffled closer and Dave felt its breath against his face as it huffed and sniffed.

"Yeah, let's not wake wiggler me, okay?" Dave murmured, carefully patting the side of Crabdad's face.

"Damn, did we ruin its nap?" Terezi said with a chuckle.

Crabdad growled at Terezi, full-on aggressive-style like Dave had spent the last four days dreading. Of course it did. It didn't know her this far back in time. _This_ was their fucking introduction from its perspective on the timeline; _today_ was why it didn't treat her as a stranger in the future.

Dave smacked it on the snout. "Fuck off, bro. She's cool."

It kept growling, but instead of advancing on her, it snagged Dave with a claw and pulled him close, lowering its head over him as if protecting him from the stranger.

"Dude, that's my matesprit. Generally speaking, matesprits don't hurt each other." Dave nudged against Crabdad's arm, but its grip held firm. "That means let the fuck go of me."

"Wait, he's scared I'll hurt you?" Terezi said, sounding too damn amused.

"Well, you know, you're just so fucking terrifying, T'z." He struggled to break free to no avail. Lusus were built for snatching up misbehaving wigglers. "Seriously, dude, you're worried about a tiny, pink, squishy alien? How do you expect me to survive drones if you think Terezi's more danger than I can handle?"

Terezi tapped her finger against her cane. "You can stop talking as if I'm harmless anytime now, Dave."

"Trying to make a point here." He groaned as Crabdad only held him tighter. "For fuck's sake, I'm fine. Doesn't it count for something that I'm six fucking sweeps old and still kicking? Dude, my eyes even fucking changed early and I'm too badass to get culled," he said, lifting his shades for proof.

Crabdad reared up and shrieked as if Dave had just shown up bleeding from his chest. It scooped Dave off his feet, darted into the hive, and dropped him onto its nest. Before he could make an escape, it settled on top of him protectively and pinned him to the ground.

"What just happened?" Terezi said, tilting her head as she stepped into the hive.

"God. Damn. It," Dave said through gritted teeth.

Terezi laughed, tapping her way closer to his voice. "Something hilarious, I take it?"

"Motherfucker just goddamn dropped his whole weight on me." Dave squirmed to free himself from his lusus's limbs, but Crabdad shifted into a stronger position every time he made progress.

"Aww, he's trying to protect his baby!" Terezi said, slowing to a halt when Crabdad growled at her. She held her hands up. "It's okay, Mr. Crabdad Strider. I'm not going to hurt your baby. Not without his permission, anyway." She smirked.

Crabdad kept growling at her like a drama queen for a full goddamn minute, but she waited it out and kept perfectly still until it quieted.

Terezi inched forward and froze the instant Crabdad's head popped up, accompanied by more growls. Again she patiently waited for Crabdad to calm its shit. They continued that loop -- growl, inch forward, growl, inch forward -- for so long that Dave's think pan was about to rot from boredom. She finally settled on her knees, just in reach from them, and waited an extra long time to let Crabdad adjust to her presence.

She slid a hand in to stroke Dave's face and he leaned into her palm. "See? Not hurting him at aaall. Your son likes me actually, Mr. Crabdad. He likes me a whooole lot, but you probably don't wanna hear that many details." She chuckled.

Crabdad huffed, let out a quiet and half-hearted growl, then nudged his snout against her hand. She patted him.

"Yeah, we're gonna get along fine," she said as Crabdad relaxed.

At least Dave's past self was sleeping like the dead that day, because no one ever investigated the ruckus.

* * *

The ruckus on day seventeen was another matter.

How the hell were they still chasing down a fight with a psychopath after seventeen nights? Fuck final bosses, especially glitched up final bosses that didn't know when to go down.

Sometimes Dave's memory jogged on an exact date that he knew his past self was out of the way, but mostly they stuck so far in the past that they only had to deal with a barely pupated wiggler. At least rent was cheap at Hotel Strider, even if the manager was a nosy loudmouth. Maybe it was the wistful nostalgia for simpler days talking, but Dave couldn't hold the noise against Crabdad.

The shrieks and screeches remained annoying, though. Even when the dumb fucker was being friendly, it found excuses to bellow at them for no damn reason.

Terezi grunted against Dave's shoulder, leaning against him as they curled up together on the couch. "Moody, isn't he?" she said, rubbing at her ear. "You might even say he's..."

"Don't," Dave said, staring at the wall as if she could even tell how hard he was ignoring her grin.

"Heeeee's..."

"No."

"Crabby!" she said, waggling her eyebrows as if she was the first genius to come up with that pun.

"Oh my god," he said flatly.

A tired moan came from his respite block and Dave froze, glancing to the door out of the corner of his gander bulb. A kid stood in the doorway, wiping his eyes and yawning. Holy shit, had he really been that small? The kid couldn't have been more than five perigees past pupation, if that, and maybe too young to even talk.

Crabdad was up in an instant, circling the young Dave and chirping to him. Apparently it used to be nicer to its ward when Dave was still young, as opposed to when he got old enough to protect himself and Crabdad hardened into a meanass motherfucker.

"What just happened?" Terezi said.

"Sh!" Dave said too late. His younger self blinked up at the sound, staring at the strangers with wide gander bulbs. Dave tried not to feel jealous of those innocent gray irises that didn't need hidden from the world.

The younger Dave whimpered and flinched back like a smart little guy who already knew damn well he was destined for the culling block and couldn't trust strangers.

Terezi straightened, her interest piqued. "Dave, is that you?"

Dave grunted. "No. I mean yes. I mean, kind of."

"Wait, it's _you?_ " she said with a grin. She hopped off the couch and knelt on the floor, holding her hands out in the younger Dave's general direction. "Hey, little Dave."

Dave tensed. "The fuck are you doing, Terezi?"

"Don't worry, I've babysat before," she said, waggling her fingers as the past Dave cautiously wandered forward.

"Do not sit on him," Dave said with a scowl. It took all of Dave's restraint to resist swooping his younger self up and throwing him back in his respite block, but that would probably cause more damage than whatever Terezi was doing.

"I'll do what I want." She grinned wider as a tiny hand touched hers. "Aww, hey there, little guy," she cooed, scooping him into her arms. He squirmed at first before settling in as she pet his hair. "He won't remember this, right?"

"Not even a little," Dave muttered. Maybe he'd shrugged this off as a dream five sweeps back, or maybe his think pan just hadn't formed enough to remember at all, but he definitely had no memory of a strange pink alien stealing him from his lusus.

Terezi stood, holding the wiggler against her shoulder. "He's so fucking tiny." She patted his back. "There, there... We didn't mean to wake you."

Dave grunted, looking away from his younger self's pathetic display of relaxation. "Okay, now let's put him down and ignore him and lower the chances that we're about to create a lethal paradox."

"No. We are cuddling him back to sleep, Dave!"

His blood pusher dropped and he got to his feet as if he had a chance in hell of talking her out of it. "T'z, no."

She grinned as the younger Dave's head slid down from her shoulder to rest against the far less bony protrusions on her chest. "Look, he still likes sleeping against my boobs!" She hugged him. "Just think, this is the first time you touched your girlfriend's boobs."

Dave facepalmed. "Oh my god."

Terezi's gasped as her fingers slid along the younger Dave's head and bumped into his horns. "His horns are so tiny!" She wrapped her palm around one and it disappeared from sight in her pink grip. "Dave, feel them!"

"I am not feeling my own horns."

"But they're awesome!" She hoisted the younger Dave up and held him towards Dave. "They're so tiny and adorable."

Dave backed away so fast he bumped his shins against the couch. "Keep that slobbering brat away from me!"

"Tooouch theee hoooorns!" She pressed the kid against Dave's shoulder. "I'm putting him on your head so he can at least feel your horns!"

"Oh my god, do not put him anywhere near me." Dave cringed as his younger self peered up at him. "I do not wanna drop him and crack his sponge open and start a doomed timeline."

Terezi frowned. "Dave, if you kill your toddler self, I'm breaking up with you right here."

With a shudder, Dave reached up and rested his hand on top of his younger self's head. "I cannot believe I am touching my past self's horns."

She chuckled. "It's magical, isn't it?"

He rolled his eyes. "This has got to be some level of incestuous hoofbeast manure."

"Let me touch one of each," she said, pushing the wiggler into Dave's arms. "I want to get Dave horns in stereo."

Dave grunted, but maybe the fastest route out of this was to let Terezi steamroll through it. He tilted his head to accommodate her grabby hands and tried not to reflect on how he was simultaneously getting horn gropes at two different points in his life. "Okay, his ridiculously tiny horns have been touched. Can we dump him back in his cocoon now?"

Terezi drew back with a deep frown. "No, Dave, he is clearly scared and lonely!"

"Oh my god, he would never," Dave said, glancing down to check for signs of distress in his younger self. The kid mostly looked tired and confused.

She carefully slid the younger Dave back into her arms, rocking him. "I am going to sing him a lullaby and he can sleep right here!"

"T'z, no," Dave said, though at that point it was less a real protest and more about the principle of a protest.

Terezi hummed as the kid settled in against her, closing his eyes. "Go to sleep, little Dave baby. Your tiny horns are tired and my boobs are soft pillows for your little ickle head..."

Dave sat on the armrest of the couch. "Terezi, don't sing. Terezi, your voice is terrible and more importantly your lyrics are shit and..." He was interrupted by himself, as the younger Dave let out a small chirp. "Did he just squeak in his sleep?"

She chuckled, stroking the wiggler's head. "Yeah, duh."

"Duh?" Dave furrowed his brow. "What's duh about that? What kind of Strider squeaks in his sleep?"

She raised her head, her grin twisting into something almost sinister. "Hang on, I need a moment to compose myself and find the most hilarious way to break this to you..." She turned away, cleared her throat, and turned back with her smirk wrestled back under control. "You, Dave Strider. You squeak in your sleep. A lot. They are the greatest noises, the sound equivalent of how nice your horns feel to touch. Yours have grown a little deeper than baby Dave's squeaks, but no less adorable and embarrassing."

Why. The. Hell. Had. No. One. Warned. Him. He knew he had a bad habit of thrashing in his sleep if sopor slime wasn't handy, but fucking _squeaking?_

"I..." He coughed as his face heated up. Fuck, how could he blush at that? He didn't blush for anything. "That's just..."

"Irony?" Terezi said with a toothy grin.

"Shut up," he muttered. He leaned over to check on his younger self. "The kid's asleep, so can we drop him back in his cocoon already?"

"Do we have to?" Terezi said with a pout.

"Do you want him to wake up screaming from nightmares?"

"Nooo." She sighed, petting the wiggler's hair one more time. "Help me put him back where he came from, then."

That was the best thing Dave had heard all day. The only way it could have been better was if she volunteered the kid to Crabdad instead of journeying to the respite block, but maybe that was just as well; Crabdad might fumble and just wake the brat again.

Dave showed Terezi past Crabdad and into the very empty respite block of his younger self. There were no posters yet, no video collection, no photographs strung up on the ceiling... Mostly there were toys strewn around the floor, which he made sure to kick out of the way for Terezi.

The recuperacoon was too big for a freshly pupated kid, but his younger self would grow into it. Touching the kid again was the last thing Dave wanted to do, but for the sake of keeping the transition smooth, he helped slide his younger self from Terezi's arms and settle him safely into the sopor slime.

Terezi rested her arm against the mouth of the cocoon, listening to the steady breathing and occasional squeaks. "You were so cute," she whispered.

"You can't see," Dave whispered back.

"Cute isn't just visuals, dummy." She leaned against Dave. "I mean, you're still pretty cute, but you lean more towards 'hot' with age."

He chuckled. "I'm so non-cute that I don't even know what the word means. You mean cut, right? I'm pretty good at cutting things."

"You're very good at cutting things." She sighed, nuzzling his shoulder. "Want to cut me some grubloaf?"

He kissed the top of her head. "I could do that."

"Cool," she said, stepping away and immediately bumping into Crabdad because the stupid lusus was standing in the doorway like a rude motherfucker. Terezi took it in stride. "Hi, Mr. Strider. Show me to the kitchen?" She hooked an elbow around Crabdad's arm and got the most baffled stare in return. "Meal block, chop chop, dad-in-law!"

Crabdad still didn't seem to know what to make of her, but he must have recognized "meal block," because he led her away.

Dave stepped after them, then hesitated long enough to make sure his younger self was definitely asleep. The kid looked so fucking naive, even in sleep. He hadn't grown an irony shield yet or learned to live in constant fear properly, but it wouldn't be long. Just another perigee or three and his sleep would lose its relaxed edge.

"Hang in there, kid," Dave murmured. "You're gonna grow up to be a wanna-be hero and a glitchy monster, but you'll survive longer than any mutant could hope for."

His younger self chirped in his sleep.

Dave wrinkled his nose. "Okay, and work on that, would you? We've got an image to worry about."

"Dave, where'd you go?" Terezi called from the other block.

Dave sighed and stepped away from the cocoon. "Just making sure the little idiot doesn't choke on slime in his sleep."


End file.
